Imago Theatre co-artistic director Carol Triffle is no economic guru, but in her new play, "Simple People," she brings her quirky, eccentric sensibility to bear on the current financial crisis and rapidly growing unemployment. The result is a whimsical theater piece - sometimes endearing, sometimes playfully amusing, but, in general, strangely perplexing. In the end, it's not entirely clear here this bizarre, unhurriedly paced tragicomedy is meant to take us.

Set in a homeless shelter, "Simple People" revolves around Amy a onetime affluent employee of Lehman Brothers now reduced to homelessness. At he shelter she meets three equally distraught ex-employees of major financial-services firms.

The on-stage rescue mission housing these four characters has the accoutrements of a real homeless shelter: a sleeping area with cramped cots, a TV area for recreation, and a blandly furnished eating area.

Backing the set are large panels -- each painted in the sort of lifeless pastel color often associated with state institutions.

A certain amount of realism holds with regard to the environment, but the acting style of the performers moves in a different direction. Both in appearance and performance Danielle Vermette, who plays Amy, and her fellow cast members -- Jerry Mouawad, Kyle Delamarter, and Darren McCarthy - take on clown-like attributes, but the approach here is less like circus clowning than commedia dell'arte on barbiturates.

There is a certain numbed, trance-like, sleep-walking quality that characterizes all four performances.

Certainly, such a style suggests a commentary not only on the responsible obliviousness that led to the recent economic crisis but also the sense of stunned helplessness that has overcome many of us as we ponder future financial options.

In her presentation of the oddly vacuous Amy, Vermette presents us with character that often seems like a marionette -- but one missing some things. And yet, with her broad ear-to-ear smile, which is more mask than expression of inner life, Vermette's Amy has a wacky charm. As Amy's chief conversation partner, Mouawad appears as young, disheveled version of Mr. Monopoly complete with top hat, moustache, and Monopoly game under his arm. Assuming a humorless demeanor and a deep voice which occasionally slips into a peculiar twang, Mouawad give this character a presence which often draws the eye even when he sits staring blankly.

As Milo and Bob, Amy's other shelter mates, Delamarter and McCarthy respectively maintain the wide-eyed emotionless tone throughout their performances--except when Delamarter allows Milo to rise somewhat from is stupor toward the end of the play to offer a nicely shaped speech which concludes with William Blake's poem, "The Angel."

The somnambulant tone of the performances is also partially relieved by the weirdly haunting original songs (with lyrics by Triffle and music by Katie Griesar) peppered throughout the production. Still, the failure of cast members to truly engage or connect with each other results in a kind of dramatic stasis. Even confessions of love between characters are flat with no more weight than fleeting non sequiturs. At the play's end when the four actors seem to come together physically, fitting side-by-side on one of the cots, each remains distant from the others -- gazing forward with little emotion.

In a sense nothing has really changed--they finish where they began.

While the clown-like inhabitants of this play may not be dark or frightening, they are each isolated, never crossing into each others' worlds. It's gloomy view of human interrelations, but, again, maybe that's Triffle's point.